Coffeehouse Thread

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I watch the keynotes from Bill Gates and notice something different about Longhorn from the prevervse versions. There were no sidebar, you know the bar that had a BIG clock in it and other stuff and I can't remember at this time. I know a lot of people
were making programs for a sidebar for XP but in WinHEC, there were no sidebar and would like to know if Microsoft decided to get rid of that feature or it was not a key importance at that time?

I doubt most people would want it unless they had a multi-monitor setup. It just too up too much screen space. People can't afford to waste that many pixels. I mean Mac users don't have that stupid dock thing permanently displayed do they?

They could make it auto-hide like the taskbar has an option to now, but that would negate the utility of the panels that were supposed to be sited there.

If I hear one more complaint about wasting screen real estate, I'm gonna go on a killing spree. AUTO-HIDE, DAMN IT! >

rhm wrote:

They could make it auto-hide like the taskbar has an option to now, but that would negate the utility of the panels that were supposed to be sited there.

No, it wouldn't. If you need quick info, you just hover it. If you need quick access to the messenger contact list, you just hover it. If you want to watch your delivery status of your Amazon.com order, you just hover it. And so on.

i liked the idea of having 3 start menus..
it would definately help clean up the mess that is "All Programs..."

Maybe have a 4th - user defined tab - choose which tab you want as default, use Classic XP style..

EDIT - the problem with the current - bigger menu is it doesnt have enough options

although i dont leave my xp install default.. i do like how it looks right after a clean install - the bar and the button with an empty desktop

if the start menu could hold more - do more .. then maybe i wouldnt have to add Quick links and address to taskbar ( address bar / search bar would be in Internet tab ) ..maybe theres a whole search tab whatever..

the startbar is the controler for windows..so they should add tons of customization options to it - as if there is only one button to click - it would be good if that button could do more

Hypothesis: the user experience and usability folks are looking it over. It's totally inconsistent with the new shell design. How many different places and ways do we want the same info?

There is a lot of research that went into having such a thing in Windows... going back several years. Hard to believe it'd just be dropped. True, last years preview version had a nearly useless version of it, and it looked particularly lame next to Desktopsidebar.

That said, Desktopsidebar is a really useful tool (I'm a big fan), and a great example of "opportunity knocks". Longhorn's wasn't fully formed yet, so OEMs jump up to the plate. Question is what will happen to it when or if Longhorn's comes out? Will the Desktopsidebar
folks improve their code quality... will they really deliver a final product, and what value would it have over Longhorn's?